NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK! • A "gripping thriller with compassionate social commentary" (USA Today) about three unforgettable characters who seek to rise—to the middle class, to political power, to fame in the movies—and find their lives entangled in the wake of a catastrophe in contemporary India.
Jivan is a Muslim girl from the slums, determined to move up in life, who is accused of executing a terrorist attack on a train because of a careless comment on Facebook. PT Sir is an opportunistic gym teacher who hitches his aspirations to a right-wing political party and finds that his own ascent becomes linked to Jivan's fall. Lovely—an irresistible outcast whose exuberant voice and dreams of glory fill the novel with warmth and hope and humor—has the alibi that can set Jivan free, but it will cost her everything she holds dear.
Taut, symphonic, propulsive, and riveting from its opening lines, A Burning is an electrifying debut.
I’ve been trying to work out how I feel about this one. Disappointed, for one, as my expectations were too high for what the book delivered. But also unsettled? And not in the way (I’m guessing) Majumdar intended. It feels like the book accidentally wound up serving the anti-Muslim, pro-nationalist view it was supposed to refute?
Note the question marks. As I said, still trying to sort out my thoughts. I get how it’s a cautionary tale, and it does well to portray how the characters are cogs in the system. But it’s also more of an intellectual exercise, and a predictable one, instead of deep, complex characters that engage empathy, or even anger. The book contains so much apathy— it rewards apathy, even— that it’s hard to come away feeling the opposite.
And do I really want to finish a book like A Burning and feel like I absorbed its… apathy?
I dunno. It’s weird. Still digesting the experience. Even writing out this review hasn’t helped me sort out my thoughts. Will have to sit with it a while and report back in time.
(Also still digesting the fact that it was picked by Jenna Bush Hager’s book club, whose father bears no small responsibility for the nationalistic and anti-Muslim violence in the US. So is it her acknowledgement that that legacy is evil, or is the book so mild in its censure that one could read it and not connect the two?)
Reading updates
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Started reading
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22 June, 2020:
Finished reading
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22 June, 2020:
Reviewed